'til it lights the way back home

[vocalfuel]

It's not the first time since I showed up here that nightmares have woken me up. It's just the first time I've decided to do anything about it.

For the most part, I've started to get used to trying to hide it, muffling screams into pillows and staying as quiet as I can, because even if she'd understand, I don't want to upset Prim. She already has more on her shoulders than she should ever have had to, and worrying about me doesn't need to be added to that list. And it's not like I don't get by, because I do. A lot of the time, I do so without getting a lot of sleep, but I'm fine, or I tell myself I'm fine, that I can handle it. I've gotten through worse, and I've gotten used to this, too, as much as anyone ever can. After everything, I'm pretty sure it's normal.

There is one thing that's always helped, though. I don't know why it's taken me this long to let myself think about that, or about the key Peeta gave me — he had to have had this in mind, right? There's no way he didn't know. All I've got is that I was too proud to consider it, or at least do so seriously, and though I'm not entirely surprised by that being the case, I've got to give it up eventually. A night like this seems the best time for it, when I've spent I don't know how long seeing the dead come back and blame me for what happened to them, haunted by twisted visions of all I've seen and done. I wonder sometimes if it will ever go away; I think about Haymitch with his drinking, and the morphlings, and I know it won't.

In the dark of the apartment, the sheet from my bed wrapped around my shoulders, I make my way to the door quietly, though not before finding Peeta's key, slinking out into and down the hall. I don't want to wake anyone, least of all Prim. I don't even want to wake Peeta before I have to, opening his door without knocking and trying to make as little noise as possible. The apartments are all alike, at least, which helps me find my way to his bed, but I'd get there anyway. I've had to look much harder for him before.

Only when I've gotten there do I dare speak, feeling unspeakably, painfully young, more shaken than I should be. "Peeta," I say, quiet but not overly so, mostly to mask the way my voice breaks. Leaving my sheet on the floor, I slowly crawl into bed beside him, just like we used to do before the Capitol took him from me. I've got him back, now. I don't intend to waste that chance. "It's me."

Comments

[boywiththebread]

Some nights, he sleeps soundly. Others leave him tossing and turning without relief, unable to turn off the restless thoughts of his mind and watching the hours tick away as the sky starts to brighten through the window. Tonight, fortunately, is one of the former - though he hasn't been able to fall into deep sleep since the Games. He's always got an ear out for movement, listening, even when the rest of his body is resting peacefully. He doesn't hear the key turning, doesn't hear the sound of bare feet moving across the floor, but what he does hear is the way the door to the bedroom creaks as it opens wide enough to allow a slender pair of shoulders to slip through. His eyes open slowly, halfway, and he catches the slip of a frame before the mattress dips under added weight.

He stretches, drawing in a deep breath, and swallows, curling over towards her, pulling her in firmly against his chest. "It's okay," he whispers, against the soft part of her hair, his other arm drawing the blankets up to cover her. While he isn't certain what prompted her to use the key he'd given her, he could venture a guess or two - and his guess is that she didn't want to wake her sister, which means it's a nightmare he needs to soothe away, distract her from. He's being partly selfish, too. He sleeps easier with her beside him; it's a fact, and one he doesn't question.

This apartment does have one thing going for it - it's not the cave in the arena. The blankets are soft and cradle them in warmth, and his arms similarly encircle her.

[vocalfuel]

I probably shouldn't be here. It's the first thing I think when I slip under his blankets, shift close to him, acting on instinct more than anything else, something too deeply ingrained in me after all the nights we've spent like this for me to ignore. As soon as that occurs to me, though, my next thought is that there isn't anywhere else I should be. I ought to have done this a while ago, except that I couldn't have, and I wonder if he's been waiting for it, but here in the dark with his arms around me, I can't bring myself to ask. It can wait until morning, if we even need to talk about it at all, which we might not. We never really did before.

For now, I just let him hold me, breaths unsteadier than I'd like, though I don't have the energy or care enough to try to do anything about it. It doesn't matter when he knows, one of the only other people here who'd get it, and the only one at all I'd let see me like this. For Prim, I have to stay strong, but here, I don't need to, and that's about as relieving as having Peeta here at all, mine and not the Capitol's. Just because I tell myself I'd be fine without him doesn't mean I would want to be.

"Is it?" I ask, more uncertain than I'd let myself be anywhere else, one hand curling around his shoulder. Sometimes I don't feel like it ever will be, but he says that and I want nothing more than to believe him.

[boywiththebread]

"Hmm?" He's already started to drift again, his body very much tethered to her and this place while his mind begins to wander, lingering in the direction of sleep. Those nights when she'd crawled into bed with him back home had been the source of the most restful sleep he'd had in a long time, but he doesn't need to tell her that. Here, in a strange place, it'd be all too easy for him to stir at the slightest noise, tensing visibly, or jerk awake, the sheets drenched in sweat. But he's lulled by the sound of her breathing, even if it sounds - and feels - slightly erratic for some reason.

"Of course it is," he whispers, when she asks, the truth of her question taking a little longer to work its way through the lethargic fog in his brain. "Why wouldn't it be?" It was never a problem that first night she'd curled up to sleep beside him, and that's something that will never change - even up until this moment, when he can sweep a few pieces of hair away from her face, his fingertips moving over the gentle angle of her cheekbone.

[vocalfuel]

I shiver under his touch, startled more by how much I like it than the fact of his doing so at all. It's not like I'd forgotten what it's like to lie here with him like this, shut away from the rest of the world — like I ever could — but before, with him so far away, even if he was right there, too, I lost some of the details. Now, they're what I focus on, however unintentionally. For one of the first times since I woke up on that train, I feel a little like I'm home, and in the best way that could be true. He's warm and familiar, and for now, at least, we're both safe, which I'm not sure I ever thought would happen. Even if it doesn't last, we will have had this.

"I don't know if anything is," I tell him, swallowing hard, my eyes wide even in the dark. I can barely make out his features, but I don't need to, his face as present in my head as all the dead I see in my sleep. It's probably better this way, anyway, so he can't see quite how scared I look, how lost. "Or if it ever will be again."

[boywiththebread]

His eyes snap open at that, previously being lulled into closing by the warm nearness of her, the gentle whispers of her voice. "Hey." He's on his back, and it only takes a small shifting movement to bring him onto his side, looking down at her. He's close enough to feel her breath, the rise and fall of her chest against his ribs. If he pressed forward a little more, he might be able to discern her heartbeat, but he can't tell at this point if it would be as calm as his is - until he sees the expression on her face, the fear permeating her features.

"It will be. It can be. It was, at home," he promises, his voice quiet and insisting. "We were making it that way ourselves, after everything." Everything: Snow, Coin, Prim, all of it. And there'd been moments of hope every day, glimpses into a promise of a future they couldn't have imagined for themselves only a short time ago. "And I have you to thank for that, Katniss. I didn't realize it at the time, but - I do now."

[vocalfuel]

I shake my head, keeping close to him all the while. Just because he's wrong about that much doesn't mean I'm going to pull away now, when the familiar warmth of being curled beside him — of having him here at all — is the closest thing to a comfort I'm going to get. It's only like this that I'd admit to needing one, when I'm not sure I could pretend like I don't. In the morning, I'll be able to pull myself together same as ever. Right now, though... I need this, the unspoken agreement that exists between us. I need him, the Peeta who was taken from me, who I wasn't sure I'd ever get back.

"No," I say, frowning even as I shift closer. "All I do is get people hurt. And worse." Maybe he's right, maybe it is okay back there, but I'm not there to see it and help pick up the pieces. What I'm left with is how broken everything was. I'm not sure I deserve anything more than that. "How is that okay, Peeta?"

[boywiththebread]

"You don't," he whispers, never more certain of that than he is right now. "Snow was responsible. Coin - they only had themselves to blame, in the end. You never directly had a hand in any of it."

His hand is a constant movement in her hair, gently sliding through dark strands, a motion meant to be comforting as his fingers form light pressure points against her scalp. It's as relaxing for him as he hopes it is for her, the repetition enough to lull his heartbeat to a slow, even rhythm - even though it's impossible for him to be more awake, more alert, more aware of her in this proximity. He'd hoped - but he hasn't wanted to be greedy, hasn't wanted to consider the possibility that she would seek him out for this kind of comfort here. A part of him doesn't even want to close his eyes for fear he'll wake up to find that this is all some kind of dream his brain has conjured up just to get himself through the night.

[vocalfuel]

I still don't believe him. I can't let myself just shrug the weight of it off like that, pin it all on other people and not take any of the responsibility. Directly and indirectly, I've gotten people hurt and worse. I've killed not only in the Arena to survive, but innocents in the Capitol, too. There's so much blood on my hands and I'm not sure I could ever be rid of it. Not even lying here with Peeta, safer than I think I've been in a long time with his arms around me, can do anything to change that.

I'm too tired to fight him, though, not least because everything about him feels so good, his hand in my hair and the warmth that comes from being so close to him. Any other time and I'd probably try to stop him, but right now, stopping is the last thing I want him to do. "It still doesn't go away, does it?" I ask, not much of a question. "It's always there."

I wouldn't be here if it weren't, and I think he knows that.

[boywiththebread]

She might not be able to sense it when it stiffens - but then again, maybe she can. Lying this close, his body starts to betray him, tensing in response to her words despite himself, even while the rest of him feels warmer, more deeply relaxed now than for a long time. His hand stills in her hair too, barely a blink's time before it resumes the motion, but it's long enough to be noticeable.

"No," he says, his voice cracking on the lone syllable before he clears his throat, curls in a little closer. "No, but I don't think it'd be a good idea for any of us to ever forget." And he's not grateful for it, per se, but he's not going to curse the days of his past and allow himself to slip into complacency. That's not who he is either.

[vocalfuel]

He goes still, his voice cracks, and right away, I feel guilty for it. I shouldn't have said anything, just gone back to sleep and let him do the same like we've done so many times since the Games, but then, this isn't quite that, either. It's been so long, the first time, for me, since the Capitol got a hold of him, and no matter how much better I feel here with him, enough that I should be able to fall asleep again, I almost can't let myself, like I'm the one who's not sure now what's real and what isn't. I don't want to wake up and have it all be imaginary.

"No," I agree, reluctant, but I can't do anything else. He's right. Especially here, with people starting to do things, trying to get some sort of government set up or whatever, we shouldn't forget. We have to make sure it doesn't happen again. "It probably wouldn't." I sigh, dissatisfied. It might be true, but I don't have to like it, and I can't help wanting to look for something more. "Peeta."

[boywiththebread]

"I don't think it would," he says, agreeing with a small nod, tilting his head forward and letting his nose nudge against her hairline, soft dark pieces of hair brushing over his cheek when he turns his face to glance up at the ceiling, blinking into the dark. "The people here, they - they all seem like they're better than that. They want to make improvements. They're not about - " He pauses, trying to find a word for it. " - Being self-serving."

She whispers his name in the otherwise quiet of the evening and he looks down again. "Hmm?"

[vocalfuel]

He's right, but I'm not sure I believe it. Of course they seem that way. They probably want to seem that way. If there's anyone I don't need to warn about that, though, it's Peeta. The Capitol hurt him even more than me. I forget that sometimes. Even if that weren't the case, though, I don't think I could work up to any kind of lecture right now. I'm never this relaxed except like this, and I've lost him too many times to push him away now, his arms around me lulling me back into something like sleepiness.

"I'm glad you're here," I murmur, quiet enough that it's only audible for how close we are. I wouldn't usually say so, and I'm not sure I like the idea of having done so now, but I think I need to say it, too. To make sure he knows.

[boywiththebread]

He's looked into the face of evil. He's stared it down until his eyes blurred from the effort not to blink, and he's seen it behind his eyelids when he tried to curl up and sleep, tried to drown out the screams that seemed as though they were coming from every direction imaginable. The people here aren't like that. They're just as confused as he feels, but they're making the effort to work together, not tear each other apart in their struggle for survival. As much as he'd felt like this was the Games all over again when he'd first arrived, he's beginning to realize more and more that this is nothing like that.

"Me too," he whispers, tucking his chin down to utter the words across her forehead, lips moving over her skin when he speaks. He doesn't even have to think about it to know it wouldn't have been the same without her here. There's no comparison.

[vocalfuel]

There's a moment, after he's spoken, that I think about lifting my head to kiss him. I push it away quickly. There isn't anyone watching now, no cameras anywhere around — none that I know of, anyway — and no brainwashing from the Capitol to try to pull him back from. I've done it so many times it's like second nature now, the act we used to play with each other, when it was really an act at all, but with all of that stripped away, I don't know how. I don't even know what I want, except for everything to be simple again like I know it never will be. I want just to stay here like this and not let anything else matter. I don't know if we can do that anymore, either.

"Thank you," I mumble, the only thing I can think of to say. However normal this might be for us, I don't want him to think it means nothing. It never has.